On November 15, 2023, Indiana congressman Jim Banks informed Indiana University President Pamela Whitten that IU’s eligibility for federal funding is subject to adherence to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against Jews. Rep. Banks also requested receipt of specific information related to Antisemitism on IU’s campus by December 1st. Four days later, several IU faculty members posted a letter accusing Rep. Banks of having a “threatening tone,” “endangering academic freedom,” and ignoring Islamophobia.

We are a diverse group of IU faculty, students, parents of students, and alumni-- many Jewish, many not. What unifies us is the strong belief that Rep. Banks’ letter was not only laudable but necessary, and that his detractors’ arguments are greatly misleading.

The backdrop to Rep. Banks’ letter, briefly referenced therein, is the tsunami of Jew hatred that has roiled college campuses nationwide after Hamas gleefully tortured and slaughtered over 1200 Israeli Jews on October 7th and took hundreds of others (including Arabs and foreign nationals) as hostages. Students across the country, alone or in groups, sometimes allied with campus faculty and even administrators, have perpetrated hundreds of documented episodes of intimidation, harassment, abuse, property damage, threats of violence and even physical attacks against their fellow Jewish students. At IU, Jewish students have been subjected to illegal doxing, harassment by professors simply for supporting Israel, the presence of student groups that openly justify Hamas’ murder of Jews, Antisemitism within student government leadership, threats and intimidation in student dorms, and a pro-Hamas student newspaper leadership that blocks any dissenting views. Notwithstanding the professors’ dismissal of these incidents as merely “serious disagreements,” the reality is that they clearly violate IU’s first amendment policy and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and fulfill the IHRA definition of Antisemitism which IU has endorsed. Unfortunately, IU’s administration has taken a weak stance in investigating and enforcing these policies when it comes to Jew hatred on campus. We doubt they would be dragging their feet if any other group was the target of such malice. Rep. Banks is therefore quite right to be holding IU administrators fully accountable.

As for concerns that Rep. Banks is somehow compromising free speech, this is patently false. We are absolutely supportive of free speech on campus, but what is occurring across the US is that campus administrators are using First Amendment arguments to avoid enforcing policies that they, as institutional leaders, are obligated to fulfill. The First Amendment is not without limits. It does not protect against harassment, threats, intimidation, or actions that violate the rights of others. According to the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, speech crosses over into harassing verbal conduct when it interferes with or limits the ability of an individual to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, and privileges provided by a college. This is what many Jewish students at IU and across the nation are experiencing. Furthermore, by not enforcing existing policies to protect Jews on campus, administrators are in fact limiting the First Amendment rights of these same Jewish students.

Finally, criticism over the fact that Rep. Banks did not mention Islamophobia in his letter simply demonstrates that the professors were not genuine in their professed concern about the welfare of Jewish students at IU. Not only is there no documented spike in anti-Muslim behavior at IU or college campuses in general, but many of the perpetrators of anti-Jewish behavior on college campuses are themselves Muslim.

We are deeply appreciative of Rep. Banks’ concern over Jew hatred at IU and hope that his efforts will motivate IU’s administration to begin to protect its Jewish students by enforcing existing policies.